ENCHANTING LEVELING GEAR

An exhaustive list of enchantments would be too exhausting to contemplate, so for each piece I simply recommend one enchantment that I think gets the job done and will serve you well for most of your ten levels. Re-enchanting leveling gear is, I think, neither time nor cost effective given the relatively small benefit you’ll enjoy.

ABOUT LEVELS 60-70

Most of your level 60 to 70 leveling experience will be undertaken in Outland. Quest rewards continue to offer a viable route to gearing your disc priest, but you will, as always, find better gear by running dungeons either with a dedicated group or using the LFG tool.

A great deal of gear becomes available at level 70, when Northrend ‘officially’ opens to your priest, but since you are probably trying to get to 70, I’m leaving all of those out except the BiS pieces.

ENCHANTING LEVELING GEAR

An exhaustive list of enchantments would be too exhausting to contemplate, so for each piece I simply recommend one enchantment that I think gets the job done and will serve you well for most of your ten levels. Re-enchanting leveling gear is, I think, neither time nor cost effective given the relatively small benefit you’ll enjoy.

ABOUT LEVELS 40-50

At the end of your 40’s, the grind might start to get to you. If you’re hearing voices, become enraged at every tank you pug (without due cause, because certainly we are all enraged at our tanks), and begin to consider re-speccing Shadow, you may want to consider taking some time out to work on your professions. This is a good set of levels in which to do that.

ENCHANTING LEVELING GEAR

An exhaustive list of enchantments would be too exhausting to contemplate, so for each piece I simply recommend one enchantment that I think gets the job done and will serve you well for most of your ten levels. Re-enchanting leveling gear is, I think, neither time nor cost effective given the relatively small benefit you’ll enjoy.

The 4.0.1 pre-Cataclysm patch introduces us to the wonderful world of reforging. Blizzard describes it thusly:

Originally a magic brought to the citizens of Azeroth by the Highborne, reforging will provide a new means for players to customize their gear in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. NPCs offering reforging services will be located in all major cities, ready to assist in customizing items by altering the stats they provide. Players can use reforging to modify an item’s stat values, or to undo any previous changes and allow different customization choices.

So, how do you get all your gear in top working order as a discipline priest? By using this handy guide, of course!

So far, there are no Mastery gems; if you want Mastery stats on your gear, reforging is currently the only way to get it.

You can find yourself on wowarmory.com and check out your stats- they’re under your feet. Look at your overall ratings and see where you need improvement, then reforge to pick up anywhere you have low ratings.

Reforgers are located in every capital city; just ask a guard with a map icon for directions.

The grand-prize winner of the Cataclysm Comic Contest was a bit of a challenge. In our discussion about the comic, Rades of the inestimable Orcish Army Knife told he me his heart belonged to engineering, the Horde, PvP- all excellent orcish qualities. But then we discovered a shared contempt: we both hate paladins. I had already read Rades’ truly excellent post, A Friend Avenged, and we both knew exactly which paladin we detested the most. Rades (and Gerk), this one’s for you.

Did Lady RNG not favor you in the last Comic Contest? Need a perfect (free) holiday gift for that WoW-playing loved one? The next Comic Contest is headed your way December 17th! Follow @DiscoPriest on Twitter to get the latest news, and in the meantime catch up on episodes of Disciplinary Action Adventures you may have missed.

The Cataclysm Comic Contest winners came from all walks of life: a blood elf, a gnome, an orc. The second-place winner, Gnomeaggedon of the incomparable ‘Armageddon’s Coming!’, requested that his one-panel comic also include some reference to his boon companion and sometimes-foe Squidly, a Dranei. When looking up their exploits on the armory, I discovered that Squidly was a mild-mannered healing Shaman, while Gnomeaggedon was a fire mage with an offspec of… fire. Add to that the gnomic love of PvP Gnomeaggedon expressed, and the type of comic the two friends required became blinding clear. Gnomeaggedon and Squidly, this one’s for you.

It seems that many people are having a big problem with the Blizzard Background Dowloader when trying to update to patch 4.0.0 from patch 3.5.5; I feel your pain, as I was as well. With slow download speeds placing my patch time at around 4 DAYS, I thought I’d hunt around for a solution. And lo, the solution is easy!

1. Start your background downloader by either starting your game or double-clicking ‘Background Downloader’ in (World of Warcraft folder location)> World of Warcraft.

2. Let the Background Downloader run until you’ve achieved at least 1% of the download. If your Background Downloader is hidden, double-click on the Blizzard icon in your system try (bottom right of your screen) to embiggen it. Once you’re at 1% or more, right-click on the icon to exit out of the Background Downloader.

3. Open the folder (World of Warcraft directory)>World of Warcraft>Cache and locate the BackgroundDownload.torr file. If you can’t see the “.torr” part, that’s okay.

Disciplinary Action is in the 4.0.1 pre-Cataclysm PTR beta and here to give you the inside scoop on all the changes coming to priests dropping in the next patch. Now, on with the show!

I rolled a brand-new Liala the Priest on the EU Brill server (hey, when am I ever going to get to talk to our brethren across the pond again?). The Character Transfer is still in stasis for me, so we’re focusing this time around on all the shiny new things you get to play with from the get-go.

The new patch downloader (above) allows you to start playing, with the patch continuing to download in the background, after only a fraction of the patch has been completed. Early problems with this system seem to have been very nicely cleaned up; I jumped in when the downloader was at a tiny 5% complete, and had very little trouble accessing the areas I needed.

Blizzard’s done a great job of prioritizing the download of places you’re currently viewing. Non-downloaded content shows up as a shimmering blue smoke, which soon coalesces into the docks at Auberdine, say, or Stormwind castle. If you’re an impatient hothead like myself, you will have a brief (1-3 minute) layover in screenshot land while your starting area is loaded for the first time. The whole process is greatly improved, though, and seems to be working as intended.

THE NEW SPELLBOOK

For All Screenshots: Click to embiggen. The Spellbook has undergone a complete overhaul. Spells now increase in size automatically as you level, rather than needing to be trained at each level at a trainer. With a new look and this new scaling functionality, the Spellbook is looking pretty sharp:

Spellbook: Main Abilities Pane

Spellbook: Discipline Spells Pane, Page 1

Spellbook: Holy Spells Pane, Page 1

Spellbook: Holy Spells Pane, Page 2

Spellbook: Shadow Spells Pane, Page 1

Spellbook: Shadow Spells Pane, Page 2

For those of us with 80 priests, note that we’ll be getting back on that leveling treadmill and fast if we want to get back some of our precious spells: Inner Will is not available until level 83, and the new and exciting Leap of Faith (for you Holies) is unavailable until level 85. Mind Spike, Shadow people, is available at 81.

THE NEW PRIEST TRAINERS

Here as well a new interface makes visiting your Priest trainer feel far more streamlined:

Trainer: Priest Spells, Page 1

Trainer: Priest Spells, Page 2

Trainer: Priest Spells, Page 3

Trainer: Priest Spells, Page 4

Trainer: Priest Spells, Page 5

Trainer: Priest Spells, Page 6

I sincerely doubt the cost of every spell will be, in the end, 10 coppers; however, we can make the educated assumption that the prices will be somewhat similar to the price levels we currently have in Wrath. My guess is that an endgame-level spell will run you something like 10 to 20 gold.

Looking more closely at the Priest trainer screens, we encounter our first new spell, Mysticism, at level 50. Mysticism is currently tooltipped as a passive bonus that increases Intellect by 5%. Further down the list, Mind Spike provides a Shadowfrost damage and debuff with 1.5 sec cast and no cooldown for the Shadow Priests. Leap of Faith, aka ‘Life Grip’, is available at level 85 and- in case you’ve been hiding under a rock- enables a priest to seize an errant DPS and pull him out of harm’s way. Certainly no one would abuse this privilege for the purposes of base amusement. Ahem. Onward.

Mastery, as for all classes, allows you to specialize in one field of priesting: Discipline Priest Mastery (Absorption) gives you a shield absorb bonus; Holy Priest Mastery (Radiance) places an HoT on any target that is the target of a direct heal. Shadow Mastery is a new mechanism, Shadow Orbs, a chance-cast floating ball system (I see you sniggering in the back) that fly around the caster and cause shadow damage.

MAPPING

You’re now able to select multiple tracking types on the minimap. Not specifically for priests, but for the gathering professions among us, WOOT!

Select a few...

... select 'em all!

PROFESSIONS

With the addition of Archaeology, we now have four secondary professions (First Aid, Cooking, Fishing, and Archaeology) in addition to our standard two primary professions. The professions pane is greatly cleaned up and enchanced, and profession trainers have the same streamlined look as the class trainers.

Fishing Trainer. Note the 'I'm still loading' smoke in the bottom right.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first look at the 4.0.1 priest changes. As soon as the character transfers unblock themselves, we’ll take an in-depth look at the higher-level spells and get a peek at the new Talents pane!

As you work on creating your character, you’ll find yourself faced with a dizzying array of numbers and acronyms. Buzzwords fly around like mosquitos in August: Stam, Haste, spell Crit and holy Crit, Spirit and nerfed Spirit.

The Blizzard-run WoW Armory will be a powerful ally in figuring out the whys and wherefores of your character statistics, otherwise known as your stats. When you log into or just visit the armory, you’ll search for your own character name and choose the correct realm for your personal ‘Ihealunoobz’.

You’ll find your base stats section here:

Base Stats

Also known simply as your ‘stats’, your base stats include the six main combat components of your character: strength, agility, stamina, intellect, spirit and armor.

Stamina (STA): Stamina determines your available pool of health.
What Stamina Means For Disc Priests: In the theoretical world of PvE raiding or instancing, your health pool won’t be an issue. You’re a clothie, at the back and squishy as hell, protected by a die-hard phalanx of plate-wearing warriors whom you trust to throw their dying corpses in front of enemies to protect you.In reality, however…When one is running PUGs for leveling or profit, frequently the discipline priest finds that he or she is at the mercy of a tank with very low aggro-holding abilities. And almost all raids these days have at least two bosses with guaranteed, uninterruptible area of effect damage spells (bone spikes, anyone?). In either case, it’s very nice to stand up to slightly more abuse than an average cloth wearer.

Staying alive means more time healing, less time running, and less money spent on repairs.Because of all that, I tend to stack Stamina to an unseemly degree. And if you’re running PvP battlegrounds or arenas, it is, of course, a no-brainer.

Intellect

Intellect (INT): Intellect determines your available pool of mana, your chance to score a spell critical strike, and mana regeneration.
What Intellect Means For Disc Priests: Intellect’s powerful effect on your mana pool is, to me, deeply reassuring. Perhaps it’s the placebo effect, but just a small increase in my mana pool really calms me down in large fights. In case you were curious, Intellect also determines the rate at which your weapon proficiencies increase, so feel free to order a Knuckle Sandwich.

Spirit

Spirit (SPI): Health and mana regeneration.
What Spirit Means For Disc Priests: Spirit is a tricky stat for discipline priests. Holy priests are far more dependent on spirit, as their more-powerful spells take longer to cast and require more mana. Disc priests, on the other hand, have an arsenal of lightweight and fast-casting spells, mainly of a preventative nature, with far lower casting costs.We’re less likely to have mana issues, and as a result I tend to give up increases in Spirit for increases in Intellect. When I do find myself running out of mana more often than I’d like, I prefer to increase Intellect- and grow my available mana pool- over Spirit.

Armor

Armor (ARM): Physical damage mitigation.
What Armor Means For Disc Priests: While I always enjoy the opportunity to be slightly less squishy (see Stamina), I tend to let Inner Fire and party buffs fill my armor needs.

If a different set of stats than the one pictured here is displayed on your WoW Armory page, click the left or right arrows (next to the word ‘Spell’ in the picture).

Hit Rating

Hit Rating: Spell Hit Rating is the chance your spells have to land on your target. It is countered by the opponent’s resistance rating.
What Hit Rating Means For Disc Priests: Healing spells always hit friendly targets, so nothing.

Crit Chance

Crit Chance (aka Crit, Criticals, Crit Rating, Spell Critical Strike): Increases the chance a spell you cast will produce an extra-large ‘critical’ strike.
What Crit Means For Disc Priests: Spells cast on friendly targets will always hit their mark, so as a dedicated healer you don’t ever have to worry about Spell Hit rating. Spell Crit, on the other hand, is of great importance to us as- since we’re guaranteed to always hit our target- any increase in Spell Crit translates directly into higher healing power. In addition, Divine Aegis and Inspiration talents proc only on spell criticals.If you hover your mouse over the words ‘Crit Chance’ on your WoW Armory page, you’ll see that your criticals are broken up into Holy, Fire, Nature, Frost, Shadow, and Arcane. Your Holy will (probably- well, hopefully!) be higher than the other forms, and will be higher, too, than your listed Crit Chance.Your Holy Crit Chance can be increased by 5% by taking all five levels of the Holy talent ‘Holy Specialization’.

Haste Rating

Haste Rating: Haste can be incredibly difficult to understand, and may be the most hotly contested stat for priests. In its simplest form, increased Haste reduces the time it takes for your Global Cooldown (spell countdown timer) to reset.

A cap is the maximum haste rating, usually given in percentages, from which a priest can benefit. The absolute fastest you can cast Flash Heal (the spell we generally use to measure the Global Cooldown speed) is one second. A cast time of greater than one second means you could be casting Flash Heal faster. If you’re already casting a one-second Flash Heal, any additional Haste will be wasted.

A hard cap on haste is your maximum beneficial haste rating with spells, buffs, and talent effects. The maximum haste you can have is 50%.

A soft cap on haste is your maximum beneficial haste rating without any spells, buffs, or talent effects. This is the number you will see on your WoW armory page. The best soft haste cap number is the source of much debate.

Here’s the take-home point: If a Shaman has cast Heroism on you, do not blow your Power Infusion or Borrowed Time. Doing so will likely put you over the Haste hard cap and the extra haste they provide will be wasted.

What Haste Means For Disc Priests: We always want to cast Flash Heal in one second, but we don’t want to have Haste in excess of that one second Flash Heal. Personally, I’d rather err on the side of having too little Haste. I don’t mind if my Flash Heal takes 1.2 seconds. Many Theorycrafters, though, get very into walking that line precisely.

I like to have a Haste rating of about 22%. Any more and I feel like I’m sinking too many resources into Haste; any less and I find my Flash Heal is casting too slowly to be responsive.

Additionally- as a very reactive and stressed-out player with a strong tendency to overheal- I look at my Haste rating as a way to stop myself from casting a Flash Heal (or two or three) on a tank at full health. I’d rather move my resources into powering up my heals and deepening my mana pool (Intellect).

If you’re just itching for more mathematical information about Priest class Theorycrafting, after all this, I recommend BobTurkey’s WoW Blog. And a visit to your friendly local psychiatrist.